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1 of 1- Chainsaw
- Warlord
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- From: South of Heaven
- Registered: 3/02/2014
- Posts: 2,138
Best Intro Stories
Imagine you have a friend that's not familiar with the body of work that inspires AS&SH, so you want to suggest some of the best samples of REH, CAS and HPL and maybe someone else (your personal favorite outside of these three, perhaps). What would your top 1-2 stories be for each of those authors?
Ideally it would be something accessible and fun that would lead them to read more, so try to avoid that esoteric piece that you've "come to appreciate" after many years and maybe now think is the best (that might be a good idea for a different thread though).
Blackadder23: Insanely long villain soliloquy, then "Your action?"
BORGO'S PLAYER: I shoot him in the face
- JasonZavoda
- Adventurer
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- Registered: 3/03/2014
- Posts: 275
Re: Best Intro Stories
Chainsaw wrote:
Imagine you have a friend that's not familiar with the body of work that inspires AS&SH, so you want to suggest some of the best samples of REH, CAS and HPL and maybe someone else (your personal favorite outside of these three, perhaps). What would your top 1-2 stories be for each of those authors?
Ideally it would be something accessible and fun that would lead them to read more, so try to avoid that esoteric piece that you've "come to appreciate" after many years and maybe now think is the best (that might be a good idea for a different thread though).
For CAS I'd recommend The Tale of Satampra Zeiros
For Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness
For REH - Beyond the Black River
For Algernon Blackwood - The Willows
- Ghul
- Dread Necromancer
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- From: Isle of Ghul
- Registered: 3/01/2014
- Posts: 2,639
Re: Best Intro Stories
Imagine you have a friend that's not familiar with the body of work that inspires AS&SH, so you want to suggest some of the best samples of REH, CAS and HPL and maybe someone else (your personal favorite outside of these three, perhaps). What would your top 1-2 stories be for each of those authors?
Ideally it would be something accessible and fun that would lead them to read more, so try to avoid that esoteric piece that you've "come to appreciate" after many years and maybe now think is the best (that might be a good idea for a different thread though).
Here are some favorites of mine that really evoke S&S / Weird Sciece role-playing, IMO.
REH: Tower of the Elephant, Worms of the Earth
CAS: The Tale of Satampra Zeiros, The Coming of the White Worm
HPL: The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Insmouth
Special Mention:
Vance: The Last Castle
Leiber: Ill met in Lankhmar
HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
- Handy Haversack
- The Monster of the Prophecy
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- From: beyond the nighted gulfs
- Registered: 3/07/2014
- Posts: 1,799
Re: Best Intro Stories
Special Mention:
Vance: The Last Castle
Leiber: Ill met in Lankhmar
I'd add
Vance: The Tschai novels
Leiber: "Lords of Quarmall" in Swords Against Wizardry. Though "The Jewels in the Forest" (Swords Against Death)--and is it "Beauty and the Beasts" where they are stuck in a version of the ancient Middle East?
- Blackadder23
- The Thousand and First Eye
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- Registered: 3/04/2014
- Posts: 1,551
Re: Best Intro Stories
All of them!
Michael Sipe 1979-2018
Rest in peace, brother.
- Ghul
- Dread Necromancer
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- From: Isle of Ghul
- Registered: 3/01/2014
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Re: Best Intro Stories
I was trying to keep my own selections in the "short fiction" range, so that the type of person Chainsaw describes does not become overwhlemed. Planet of Adventure is my favorite Vance work, but it's a lot to absorb for a newbie whom you are trying to provide "samples" to. The same goes for At the Mountains of Madness -- incredible novella, but a lot to chew on for the newly initiated.
HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
- JasonZavoda
- Adventurer
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- Registered: 3/03/2014
- Posts: 275
Re: Best Intro Stories
I was trying to keep my own selections in the "short fiction" range, so that the type of person Chainsaw describes does not become overwhlemed. Planet of Adventure is my favorite Vance work, but it's a lot to absorb for a newbie whom you are trying to provide "samples" to. The same goes for At the Mountains of Madness -- incredible novella, but a lot to chew on for the newly initiated.
I think that At the Mountains of Madness is a good intro because of the extraordinarily normal and yet adventurous start. If you weren't particularly familiar with Lovecraft's work this novella is very surprising. It beginds almost as a regular artic explorer story and is, in its way, one of the more mundane mythos stories while still being one of the best written and most exciting.
Last edited by JasonZavoda (3/21/2014 2:47 pm)
- Blackadder23
- The Thousand and First Eye
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- Posts: 1,551
Re: Best Intro Stories
With respect to AS&SH in particular - rather than just as an intro for the general reader - I would suggest "The White Ship" by HPL, "The Seven Geases" by CAS, and "Tower of the Elephant" by REH. All of those are reasonably short.
Michael Sipe 1979-2018
Rest in peace, brother.
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